Monday, January 25, 2016

The Con Oil Pimps and the Dangerous Pipeline Debate

It's quite the confrontation. Denis Coderre, the blowhard Mayor of Montreal, jackhammering plans for an Energy East pipeline. Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre announced the city's official opposition to proposed Energy East pipeline project Thursday, saying the potential risks outweigh its possible economic benefits to communities including his.And Brad Wall, the blowhard oil pimp from Saskatchewan, threatening to declare war on Quebec.

"For the better part of the last decade, the western Canadian energy sector and western Canadian taxpayers have supported a great portion of these transfer payments as well as the Canadian economy,” Wall wrote on Thursday on his Facebook page. “Is it too much to expect that these Quebec municipal leaders would respond to this reality with generous support for a pipeline that supports the very sector that has supported them?”And along with that other blowhard oil pimp Jason Kenney...

Helping to trigger a torrent of hatred against the people of that province.Wall and Kenney's comments provoked a stream of anti-Quebec reaction from social media trolls who described the province as a group of parasites, socialists and a welfare state, among other insults.Which will only make the project even less popular in Quebec. And as Chantale Hébert points out, could eventually threaten Canada's national unity, by playing into hands of separatists in the West AND Quebec.An immediate collateral result is to make the TransCanada plan one of the stakes in the larger Quebec debate over the province’s command of its affairs.
In the pipeline project, the sovereigntist movement has found an issue that stands to test the limits of Quebec’s autonomy within the federation and — in the event of a Quebec-Ottawa collision — rekindle support for its independence projectSo for the sake of a lousy pipeline, a country could be lost.A fact that doesn't seem to bother Rona Ambrose a bit, because she's an oil pimp too, and all she's trying to do is drag Justin Trudeau into the crossfire.

Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose says it’s time for the prime minister to step in and help end the war of words raging between local politicians over the Energy East pipeline.I hope that Prime Minister Trudeau can pick up the phone and use his influence with Kathleen Wynne and his influence with Dennis Coderre and get them onside for a project that really is about nation building.”No doubt in the hope that it will help destroy him.Even though it's not up to Trudeau, or Denis Coderre, or Brad Wall, to decide the fate of the Energy East pipeline, before the National Energy Board holds hearings on the project.And if Ambrose is seeking to blame anyone for this potentially ugly confrontation she should blame her former leader Stephen Harper...

The depraved oil pimp who poisoned the pipeline process by twisting the truth, muzzling scientists, threatening and auditing his opponents, and by doing absolutely nothing to fight climate change.And who before he left office stacked the NEB with his patronage appointments.

The moves mean that barring the future appointments or early renewals being rescinded, the Trudeau government will not be able to replace any temporary members of the National Energy Board until at least May 2018 and any permanent members of the NEB until January 2020 – which is after the next election.To make sure that he can still control our energy policies...

From beyond the grave, and even if they lead this country to disaster.And the good news?He may have handcuffed Trudeau, but he has also left the NEB in no position to render an impartial ruling on the Energy East pipeline.And that will hopefully encourage Justin to exercise the only other option he has at his disposal: Disband the NEB, replace it with a new body, new members, and a new mandate.Which would not only place him above the crossfire, and assert his leadership, but would also be yet another way of destroying Stephen Harper's foul legacy.Because Trudeau does need to assert himself.He does need to teach the Cons who are trying to destroy him a lesson.And remind them who won the last election...

For they do need reminding.And yes, let's keep working to destroy THEM.Before those ghastly Con oil pimps tear this country apart...Please click here to recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers.

Brad Wall and Rona Ambrose don't have to get elected in Quebec.Denis Coderre and other municipal,provincial and federal politicians do.The bigger question is,how many voters in QC do not want this pipeline full of tar sands gunk running through their province?Google leaking Alberta pipelines or Enbridge or Nexen oil leaks.Enuff said.

Incompetent Janice Charrette, canned because of appointments extending beyond reason to NEB. The L. Ian Macdonald crying a river for her in ipolitics made me want to rethink my support of ipolitics. Google Zabia Chamerlain and Janice Charrette if you would like to curdle your blood. Trudeau and his team are beyond Super Heroes for getting rid of this sorry excuse for a civil servant. I think we can throw in some Clemente in with the Chamerlain-Charrette saga.

So, I say cheers! Canadians are not cow towing to the NEB and the legacy of Harper. Dennis Coderre remembers Lac Magentic, as do many Montrealers. Pipelines and trains are different, but for too long there has been no public discourse on this. Do we trust the regulatory body that is responsible for over sight? No.

Anon 7:56 am, if you would take the time and focus yourself on learning about the sewage situation in Montreal, you would know that there was sadly no choice on that one. Unfortunately, many people choose to keep themselves uninformed, while thinking they have something interesting to bring to the table. Unfortunately for you, life doesn't really work that way.

Under a previous Cons government (Diefenbaker's), Canadians west of the Ottawa Valley (google "Borden Line") were subsidizing Alberta during the oil price collapse of that era. This was called the National Oil Policy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_Canada

From the above link: "Not everyone was happy with the arrangement. The aim of the National Oil Policy was to promote the Alberta oil industry by securing for it a protected share of the domestic market. Under the policy, Canada was divided into two oil markets. The market east of the Ottawa Valley (the Borden Line) would use imported oil, while west of the Borden Line, consumers would use the more expensive Alberta supplies. For most of the 1961-73 period, consumers to the West paid between $1.00 and $1.50 per barrel above the world price, which, just before the 1973 OPEC oil embargo and price increase, stood at around $3.00. They also paid proportionately higher prices at the pump than Canadians east of the Borden line."

Ontarians had paid billions more because they were not allowed to buy the cheaper oil from international sources. However, when international oil prices shot up again, Alberta had insisted that Ontario and other Canadians pay the higher international oil prices. It culminated in the rejection Pierre Trudeau's NEP which would have forced Alberta to sell its oil at a slightly lower price as payback for the Diefenbaker decade (actually 12 years) of subsidy. We know how that controversy had ended: Albertans refused to sell oil to Canadians at lower than international prices and even drove cars with bumper stickers that said: Let the eastern bastards freeze in the dark. Alberta then ended selling the oil at discounted prices to the Americans. How was that for nation building?

Wynne should tell Alberta to bugger off if they try to bring up the issue of transfer payments.

Unfortunately politicians and media are long on emotional rhetoric and short on facts.I certainly don't have all the facts but the few I have point to a complex issue. Canada's oil consumption is in the order of 1 million barrels a day but the great oily Messiah at his peak wanted to extract and sell in the order of 5 to 8 million barrels a day.No value added refining in Canada, just pipe it somewhere,anywhere.Unlike imported oil which tends to be a homogenous mixture the western oil has to be diluted with light (volatile) fractions to make it flow. This comes with technical challenges that have environmental and safety consequences which I am sure science can sort out given time but quickly ramping up in a cloud of Con inspired secrecy was not in the best public interest.Learning from incidents can be very costly as we have already seen.The same is true for extraction methods which use fracking methods with high pressure steam to extract the oil but unlike conventional fracking the deposits are located near the surface and not imbedded under layers of impervious rock so blowouts and ground water contamination can be more problematic.These and other issues can likely be solved or minimized with solid Canadian engineering and science but it takes an honest open process properly supported with money and time. Unfortunately the Cons lost a decade by shrouding it in a cloud of secrecy in the belief that the public will go "squirrely" if given any facts and created a "US vs THEM" mentality. Significant political and economic damage has been done and it will be a real challenge to re-establish a trust worthy scientific and economic community with a dialogue and decisions that the public can trust.On the bright side the biggest challenges usually contain the biggest opportunities; we have to start somewhere other than useless political rhetoric and MSM headlines!RT

C.B.C. is quoting Ambrose as saying Coderre is "fermenting" a national unity crisis and Trudeau was speaking negatively about oil field workers in Switzerland,.

Ambrose needs to understand the politicians were elected in Quebec by Quebecors and they are doing what they consider best for Quebec. They know pipelines leak and they simply may not want that in their province.

Now if Ambrose considers opposition to pipelines as formenting a national unity crisis, I wonder why she didn't mention B.C. because there is a lot of opposition to pipelines here. Perhaps she forgot about the province next door to Alberta but I'd suggest she is the one who is "fermenting/formenting" a national unity crisis as a way to find a new wedge to gain popularity.

There are as many people/policians in the west as in Quebec who oppose pipelines. It has nothing to do with where we live. It has everything to do with pipelines and the mess they can and do create. You don't have to be a Quebecor to oppose pipelines, you just have to be an environmentalist. There are those of us who remember the pipelines getting split open and gushing oil all over a Burnaby neighbourhood a few years ago. Not a pretty picture.

obviously some of the cons must be suffering from dementia, having forgotten why Montreal they had to run sewage into the river. They needed to do repairs. No one seems to have mentioned that Victoria, B.C. to this day discharges all sewage right into the Pacific Ocean, no treatment plant, never has been and at the rate its going, never will be. Did we ever hear the Cons suggest B.C./Victoria get with the agenda and install one? The Americans are loosing patience with Canada over the issue. All that sewage does find its way into American waters and their San Juana islands.

If it hadn't been for Ambrose and the Cons neglecting the manufacturing sector in Canada and Mulroney signing NAFTA, manufacturing might have been in better shape, with Alberta workers being able to translate their skills to manufacturing. Ambrose and the Cons never gave a thought to a high Canadian dollar having a negative impact elsewhere in Canada. They put all the eggs in one basket and then their good friends the Saudi's started pumping out more oil and haven't stopped. Its created problems in the Canadian economy and in Russia. Some were of the opinion the Saudi's did it to have a negative impact on Russia for their war in Ukraine. Me, I always thought it was to shut up Harper for his anti Muslim stance.

Robot Ambrose conveniently leaves out that the keystone pipeline heading south was blocked because US residents had major concerns about this, sink to the bottom of your water supplies and is impossible to clean up oil, just like what happened in Kalamazoo Michigan...

O'MALLEY: Climate change is the greatest business opportunity to come to the United States in 100 years. And I am the first candidate in either party to put forward a plan to move us to a 100 percent clean electric energy grid by 2050, and create 5 million jobs along the way.

And this is another one of those instances, Chris, where Iowa is pointing the way forward. Look at what you have already done in your state. Thirty to 35 percent of your energy now comes from clean Iowa wind, which wasn't there 15 years ago.

And you employ 5,000 people in the new industry, and the great thing about those big component parts you see rumbling down the highway on I-80 is they're too darn big for it to make a whole lot of sense to import them from other countries.

So you have to build them here.

(APPLAUSE)

And it's a big -- and it's a big differentiator among the three of us. I mean, we're all -- we're all decent people, we all want to do the right thing for our planet, but there is a generational perspective here. And we're not going to get to 100 percent clean electric grid with an "all of the above" strategy, any more than we got to the moon with an "all of the above" strategy.

It was an engineering challenge. And we are up top this as Americans. But incrementalism, half steps, splitting the loaf, that's not going to get us. And that's not what your generation wants. You want the straight truth and you want us to face our challenges fearlessly and make this new reality ours.

It feels great to understand a point of view like yours. But can you please explain your position? Is Energy East a good idea then? Probably not now but in future years? Of course I disagree with the project, in spite of voting for the liberals, who claimed to be for it. But still, despite my opposition, I still can't stop but envying the Quebecers who knows how to oppose the pipeline, a.k.a the quebec nationalists. As if they know what to talk about, as if it's a project that would destroy Quebec fauna and flora. If you know what symbolic violence means, I do resent it a lot. Because the Bloc Québécois and the PQ claims that not voting for them means having the pipeline in our province, to the contrary of them bragging to stand up straight and tell Ottawa to back off. Yes, it makes me sick this vicious circle of polarised quebec nationalist/right-wing quebec federalist. Hope you understand what I mean?